In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Rihanna opens up about getting back together with Chris Brown three years after he assaulted her in 2009.

“I was that girl,” she told the magazine. “That girl who felt that as much pain as this relationship is, maybe some people are built stronger than others. Maybe I’m one of those people built to handle shit like this … You want the best for them, but if you remind them of their failures, or if you remind them of bad moments in their life, or even if you say I’m willing to put up with something, they think less of you — because they know you don’t deserve what they’re going to give. And if you put up with it, maybe you are agreeing that you [deserve] this, and that’s when I finally had to say, ‘Uh-oh, I was stupid thinking I was built for this.’ Sometimes you just have to walk away.”

The extensive profile — interspersed with images of the singer shot by Annie Leibovitz — details Rihanna’s rise to fame, her status as a fashion icon and the stark divide between her private and public images. Rihanna also discusses Rachel Dolezal, the white woman and Spokane NAACP chapter president who pretended to be black for almost a decade.

“I think she was a bit of a hero, because she kind of flipped on society a little bit,” Rihanna said. “Is it such a horrible thing that she pretended to be black? Black is a great thing, and I think she legit changed people’s perspective a bit and woke people up.”

For more, head over to Vanity Fair.

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